Rollout of NSCR ushers in new era in railway industry—DOTr

By Maricel V. Cruz

ROLLOUT of the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) system will signal the revival of the country’s rail sector, Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said on Monday.

Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep.

Bernadette Herrera has filed a bill creating a single and unified regulatory body or the railway industry “to promote the efficient and effective management of the national railway system.”

The NSCR, a 147-kilometer railway project, broke ground on Monday for the P73.25 billion South Commuter Railway project or the Alabang-Calamba segment.

“We are forging ahead, overcoming every challenge, because we know meeting the project’s deadlines will lead to a game-changing rail system that will transform lives,” Bautista said during the

Comelec purges voters’ list ahead of October village polls

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has deleted a total of 257,805 voter registrations out of the more than 400,000 who have double or multiple registrations.

A Church-based poll watchdog was also preparing for the October 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).

Comelec spokesman Rex Laudiangco said the purge of the voters’ registration list came ahead of the BSKE. The Comelec said there were more than 400,000 voters found to have double or multiple registrations nationwide.

“This is a result of the June 19 Special Election Registration Board hearing,” Laudiangco said, adding that “the number includes 167,223 identities of two or more voters’ fingerprints based on the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

He said the list also covered 84,335 voters who transferred residence to another city or municipality, 83 voters who failed to vote twice in two succeeding regular elections, 2,620 voters who were reported or confirmed deceased by the local civil registrars, and 3,544 voters who were found to have

DOH eyes shorter treatment period of 4 months for TB per WHO idea

THE Department of Health (DOH) mulls the implementation of a shorter treatment scheme for tuberculosis (TB) by the third quarter of this year.

Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said they were looking at a four-month therapy for individuals suffering regular drugsusceptible TB, in contrast to the previous 12-month treatment period.

“The WHO [World Health Organization] has recommended us to adopt the four months treatment for regimen, which is two months for a certain list of drugs and another two months for a different set of drugs. This is for the regular drug-susceptible tuberculosis,” Herbosa said.

However, individuals with drugresistant tuberculosis would have to undergo six months of treatment, he added.

Dr. Kezia Lorraine Rosario who was designated as action officer for TB and HIV, said the new guidelines ensure that patients undergoing the treatment course would have a shorter span of intake “therefore falling out of the treatment will be lessened”. double and multiple records in the city or municipal level. Another round of voter’s list cleansing will be conducted this coming July 27 preparatory to the BSKE, the poll body said. Meanwhile, Comelec mulls the automation of succeeding BSKEs.

“The one that is suitable for the adults, that’s two months each, these are the isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol,” she said.

“Children until 12 years old that would be a combination of two sets of drugs which is the isoniazid, rifampicin, moxifloxacin, and pyrazinamide,” she added.

Apart from a new set of drugs for treatment, the DOH would be incorporating new technologies for case buildup.

“’Yung GeneXpert ginamit din natin ito (The GeneXpert which we used) during COVID. In fact, we used a different cartridge to detect COVID quickly but when it was brought to the Philippines, it is for the Global Fund to detect TB, so it has a cartridge where sputum can be put and then we identify the multiple drug-resistant TB because it is genetic,” Herbosa said.

“We will proceed with the automation. We can no longer proceed using the manual elections after the Oct 2023 BSKE elections,” Comelec chairman George Garcia said. The Comelec said the envisioned automation was meant to reduce electionrelated violence.

“In manual elections, we need early voting hours for senior citizens, persons with disability, pregnant women, indigenous people, it would mean that teachers will need to be in their assigned precincts as early as 4 a.m. They will then need to manually count the votes until early morning the next day. That will be a pitiful situation for them,” Garcia said.

“In the BSKE, the longer vote counting goes, the more it becomes vulnerable to violence. Once there is a trend on who is winning, the emergence of violence becomes more probable.” he added.